Dawn eyes Vesta's full-frontal charms NASA has released the first "full-frame" image of asteroid Vesta, an impressive view of the Clanger homeworld captured by the Dawn spacecraft on 24 July at a distance of roughly 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometres). Dawn's full-frame image of Vesta. Pic: NASA Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer, enthused: "Now that we are in orbit …
"Now that we are in orbit around one of the last unexplored worlds in the inner solar system, we can see that it's a unique and fascinating place."
Oh yeah! - we're all standing on one of the least explored places in our solar system and, since it contains a relative abundance of live, I would suggest that we expend money and efforts investigating the Earth instead. Perhaps we could determine how to continue to live here with a little more sustainability in mind, rather than filling the solar system up with more expensive junk.
Just saying.
(Yes, interesting, but not a big fan, you might be able to tell)
I take your point, but we are all, in fact, standing on what is by orders of magnitude the most explored place in the solar system - unless someone other than us has explored the rest of it in depth, and not Earth, and we haven't heard about it?
I am lost for words. I have no idea on where to begin and where to end, so I am just going to mention the stuff I would like to enlighten you about. Like the importance of science, that science is it's own purpose and none of the great ideas in science that has moved mankind forward was meant to achieve anything. I would tell you about the importance of wondering, expanding our reach and knowledge, and about recruitment to science. Then I would move on to tell you about how it is very hard to understand the Earth without having anything to compare it with. After telling you about all these things and more I would reflect on why you seek out an article about a space program on a tech site when you would rather have mankind not doing any of these things.
And when I finished that last bit I would have found myself enlightened with the fact that I didn't get through, and that I should have known that from the start.
So my post dissed science did it - no. How do you think we might "investigate" the earth without it. I am merely suggesting that we might be better off applying our minds to our continuation on this planet (*for the mean time), by comprehensively making sustainable use of it's resources etc. (yes, with science) as opposed to sending expensive missions out to look at nearby lumps etc. It's a long term approach you see. One where we use our nouse to establish a firm base here on earth before we (* inevitably - if we are around long enough) have to make a leap into considering adopting a new out-post for our furtherance. We can do plenty of space-science from down here on earth and as we progress in that area we will be able to gather all the data we need towards future developments. It's a kind of "look before you leap" argument. We will be required to make huge changes in our attitudes towards each other - social changes towards religion, population and politics etc. But I would rather we go beyond our, as yet, limited reach when we have sorted all that out, understood how to get along together and are in a fit condition to venture into the management of another habitable rock to make our own. The monies expended on short-term "eew look what we can do" space projects could be put to better use down here on planet earth for a while yet. I mean look how we get along right now, we live in pretty squalid conditions of our own making and don't exactly embrace the need recognize how important we all are to each other.
Yes, I concur wholeheartedly that science is a "must" but it has to go hand in hand with how it is applied and careful consideration of the desired results. Our first, toddler-like, steps around the moon and back were very impressive, given our technological grasp at the time, but we are in school right now and need to pay attention and get our homework done to A+ standards and change our attitudes in the playground. (by which I imply that a life driven by goals of finance / material acquisition alone is not enough even if that appears to result in some spectacular science).
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